When my daughter was younger we needed to keep her away from the cleaning supplies under the sink. (For those of you without children who may think that we parents are overly worried about these things, just know this: the same child who turns her nose up at a glass of grapefruit juice because it is “too sour” will happily guzzle down a whole bottle of Pine Sol if given the chance. Don’t ask me why: I don’t understand why college students drink Jägermeister either.)
And so, to keep Clementine from doing Drano shots, we had a special trick. No, we didn’t put child locks on the cabinet. (We tried, but they—along with the toilet lock, the door jamb protectors, and the fridge lock, ended up completely defeating us. The only child-proofing device that ever worked for us were those little things you stick in the outlets so that kids don’t stick a fork in there. And yeah, if given the chance, they will also always stick a fork in there. Again, don’t ask me why.)
We also didn’t put a security gate up in the kitchen. (If you’ve ever fallen over one of those things in the middle of the night, you’ll understand why.) No, we had a much better way to keep Clementine out of the cabinet: the Macarena Monkey.
The Macarena Monkey was a horrible little stuffed monkey her grandmother gave her. It was motion-activated; whenever you got anywhere near it it would start to dance and sing the Macarena. It was completely obnoxious, and not just because it played the Brazilian version of “My Achy-Breaky Heart”—it also smelled terrible. The awful song, the terrible smell and the fact that it had been purchased at a truck stop all made me suspect that it had originally been part of some South American drug smuggling ring. (“See? After we remove the cocaine we can sell it.” “Who would buy such a hideous thing?” “Americans.”)
And yet, despite its questionable provenance, we loved it because it terrified Clementine completely: she would scamper away in fear every time she heard it. Which made it perfect for under the kitchen sink.
Of course, all of this was years ago; I’d actually forgotten all about the Macarena Monkey until recently, when I spotted a tiny little boy busily going through a cabinet and told his mother our old secret. She was intrigued by the idea of it, but questioned whether if had been the monkey or the song that had scared Clementine the most. It was an interesting thought: the monkey had been so awful that it had never occurred to me that it might just have been the song doing the dirty work all along. Then I realized that, in the years since, although Clementine has never shown any other distaste for monkeys, she still loathes bad music—and that’s when I saw the possibilities.
Let’s say I catch Clementine smoking out behind the middle school one day: all I’ll have to do is dance up to her singing “Hey! Macarena!” and she’ll be a nonsmoker for life. The same thing goes for high school. Forget about her ever getting the chance to “park”—I’m sure it will only take one time for her boyfriend to look out the car window and see me bouncing up and down to the beat, slapping my hands on my hips and shoulders, and that romance will be history.
And who knows? I might even still be able to use it when she’s an adult. It’s not like I have to worry about the Macarena ever becoming good (although I might have to worry about it being outlawed). So, if one day you come out of the voting booth and hear “Hey! Macarena!” don’t be worried. It’s just that Clementine has decided to vote Republican.